In Love and War
by Das War Schon Kaputt
Summary: Her birth certificate reads Lelouch vi Britannia, an ill-fitting name for an ill-fitting girl. Her mother says that the name was born out of a pain-killer and endorphin high, but they both know that the real reason is that the Emperor was expecting a son. That's probably a large part of why she is how she is. She always did feel like she had something to prove. (Fem!Lelouch) (AU)
1. An Inauspicious Beginning

**Pre-Story Notes**

So, this is part female Lelouch, part AU. The canon divergence should happen sometime during the first chapter. It may seem contrived, but I know what I'm doing. (I think.)

So I guess the main thing is not to tell me that fem!Lelouch's actions are out of character. They may be for canon!Lelouch, but this is a different person, with a different set of experiences. Most notable, I guess, would be the fact that she fell in love with Suzaku when they were kids.

Oh, yeah, if that bothers you, you should probably stop reading. It's a large part of what motivates Lelouch in this fic, even if chances are that she'll fuck them both over by the end of it all.

That said, I hope you enjoy it.

 **Summary**

Her birth certificate reads Lelouch vi Britannia, an ill-fitting name for an ill-fitting girl. Her mother says that the name was born out of a pain-killer and endorphin high, but they both know that the real reason is that the Emperor was expecting a son.

That's probably a large part of why she is how she is. She always did feel like she had something to prove.

* * *

.

 **In Love and War  
**

 **Chapter One  
An Inauspicious Beginning**

 _Not much is known of what happened during the vi Britannia siblings' time as political hostages in Japan. One of the few surviving witness accounts is that of Kimie Ise, a maid employed by the Kururugi family, who kept a diary that was recovered after the invasion. The "Lady Kururugi" that is referred to in this passage is Sonoe Kururugi, the Prime Minister's wife._

 _"_ _Lady Kururugi has no like for either of them," Kimie writes in an entry dated one week after the siblings' arrival in Japan, "but it is with a particular fire that she hates Princess Lelouch. I cannot find it within myself to disagree with her, either. Princess Lelouch is rude to the point of impropriety – although I cannot say that I had expected anything different from a child of Britannia. There is a rumour that the Prime Minister is aiming for a political marriage between her and Lord Kirihara. I hope it happens sooner rather than later, if only to banish her from the house. She unnerves me. There are some things that you should not see within a nine year-old."_

-Jenna Harrison FSA FRHistS  
From the BBC television documentary, "Britannia's Black Princess", first aired Dec. 5. 2108.

.

This is Japan. It's hot in the same way that cake batter is sweet, sticky and overwhelming and raw. Lelouch, Pendragon-born and –raised, used to unbearable heat and freezing nights, steps off the plane and aches for home.

 _No,_ she remembers, _not home. Not after what you did._

"Lelouch," Nunnally murmurs, too quiet for the Japanese men and women in front of them to hear. "You're hurting me."

Oh. Lelouch looks down and sees Nunnally's dainty hand, held too tight within her own fingers. She forces herself to loosen the grip, and pastes a paper-thin smile on her face before meeting the gaze of Kururugi Sonoe.

The Prime Minister's wife is a foreign shade of Britannian nobility, Lelouch would guess. She certainly holds herself like it, though that might be the power of her husband speaking, and she definitely dresses like it. Unfamiliar though Lelouch may be with kimonos, she can tell that the one that Sonoe is wearing is equal parts expensive and tasteful.

It's also a message: this is _Japan._

"Follow me," Sonoe says in curt, unaccented English.

There are no introductions. A deliberate snub, no doubt, but Lelouch is honestly beyond the point of caring. She can feel Nunnally fading beneath her touch, a combination of weariness from the flight and side-effects from her pain-killers pulling her slowly into sleep.

Lelouch follows.

The journey to Kururugi Shrine takes three hours by car. Nunnally is barely there for most of it, drifting in and out of consciousness, leaving Lelouch to categorise their surroundings in silence. The differences between Japan and Pendragon are obvious, now. Where Pendragon is dry and surrounded by desert, Japan flourishes, lush and green and alive. The road hugs close to the sides of mountains, winding around in half-circles until Lelouch begins to feel slightly sick.

 _So was it worth it, Lelouch?_

She honestly does not know.

.

There are 785 steps up to Kururugi Shrine. Lelouch climbs them all without complaint, Nunnally dozing lightly on her back, even as her legs and lungs burn. She's drenched through to her undergarments by the time she reaches the top, but she doesn't let her discomfort show for even one second.

As the daughter of the one common-born Empress, Lelouch is more than practised at hiding her own weaknesses.

It almost makes her laugh. The skills she used just weeks ago for nothing more than politely insulting Cornelia over tea might just save her life before this ordeal is over.

The household staff show her and Nunnally to their room, whispering all the while. It's a foolish assumption on their part that she can't speak Japanese, though she supposes that she can't blame them for it.

If she had been born to any other family, Lelouch would have been lauded as a prodigy. She wasn't, though, and she isn't, so people look at her and they see nothing more than a spoilt brat in a dress that cost more than they make in a year. They don't see her intelligence, and they don't see the girl who sat by her sister's hospital bed with nothing better to do than to teach herself a new language.

It's a pitiful advantage, in truth, but it is all she has.

 _Dignity has no place in survival._

So, when the maid behind them mutters, " _Little Britannian bitch,"_ under her breath as Lelouch settles Nunnally on the bed, there is only one possible course of action that she could take.

"Did you say something?" Lelouch asks, head tilted to the side with just a hint of arrogance. It's a gesture she had seen far too often in her half-siblings, even if she and Mother had thought it made them look vapid.

The maid demurs, shaking her head. "I apologise," she says formally, foreign tongue butchering the syllables. "I do not speak English."

Of course she doesn't.

Lelouch sniffs and turns her head, a clear dismissal. She leans in close to Nunnally and kisses her little sister's brow. There's a murmured promise to describe everything she's seen in detail later, but Nunnally is still recovering and the flight knocked her out, so it will have to wait.

"I love you," she says, throat raw around the words.

"Love you too," Nunnally mumbles back sleepily, and then she's gone. Lost to her dreams.

Lelouch smiles sadly.

Britannia is poison. It's decay and rot, a society that is slowly stagnating inside its own arrogant indolence. It will collapse, if not from its own unstable principles, then because Lelouch will forcefully _topple_ it. The country that took her mother, took her sister's legs and sight – it deserves no less.

Japan, though… Lelouch is honestly not sure if it is any better.

The room she and Nunnally have been given is obnoxiously Japanese. The floor, the walls, the door, the décor – everything about it screams national pride in the most obvious way possible. If Lelouch didn't know better, she'd probably think they were trying to make a point.

She snorts delicately. There's no _try_ about it. Kururugi Genbu is definitely making a point.

You are not in Britannia anymore. This is not your home. We will bow to neither you nor your homeland.

How transparent.

But this, she reflects, is Japan: hopelessly set in its ways, too proud for meaningful negotiations and too obsolete for a military victory. Lelouch, too clever by half and far angrier, thinks it's what this pathetic country deserves.

.

Lelouch hates Kururugi Sonoe with an intensity that is only matched by the older woman's returning sentiments. Sonoe is Japan's folly distilled into one person, a woman obsessed with tradition to the point of cruelty.

 _You ridiculous, petty witch,_ Lelouch fumes as her fingers twitch and the food drops out from between her chopsticks yet again. _I know you have silverware in the house._

She looks up and across the table to where Sonoe is sat, body held in taut, precise elegance, sneering laughter in her eyes as she picks easily at her meal. Her lips twitch upwards, and Lelouch follows her gaze to Nunnally.

Nunnally has been blind for barely a month. She's not used to eating without the aid of her sight and the added complication of using chopsticks means that she misses her mouth more often than not.

 _I suppose a woman like you has to find victories somewhere,_ Lelouch wants to say, but she swallows the words down. Instead, she draws her focus away from Sonoe. "Let me help you with that," she says, putting a hand on her sister's shoulder so that Nunnally knows what she means.

"Thanks, Lelouch," Nunnally says back with a smile.

"No problem." Lelouch needs to concentrate on something other than plotting their host's death, after all.

In the end, it turns out that Lelouch has underestimated her ability to multitask. By the end of the meal, she has four ways that she could murder Sonoe and get away with it, and a further seven where her innocence would probably be called into question.

There is no compassion within Kururugi Sonoe, Lelouch decides, and in that, she is Britannian to the core.

.

Nunnally is still sleeping when Lelouch emerges from their room, a week after their arrival in Japan. She's dressed herself in the most offensively Britannian clothes she brought with her, a frilly, useless dress that she would hate if not for the way it makes Sonoe curl her lips in disgust.

But that isn't the reaction that Lelouch gets when she enters the sitting room. Instead, Sonoe _smiles_ at her.

It would be enough to put anyone on edge.

So Lelouch stands there, in the doorway, frozen like an idiot, until Sonoe says, "Where is the other one?"

You two. The other one. Each address is like that, never a name, not even a title, and Lelouch holds no small amount of contempt for Sonoe over it.

 _To you we will never be anything more than bargaining chips, will we?_

"Nunnally isn't feeling well," Lelouch replies, eyes narrowed. She moves into the room.

Sonoe huffs and it's then that Lelouch notices for the first time that they're not alone in the room.

"You will have to suffice, I suppose. There is someone that you are going to have to meet."

And then there's a fist flying towards Lelouch's face.

.

This is Suzaku. He's sanctimonious and self-righteous and it will probably get him killed some day. Lelouch distantly recognises him as the type to be dubbed a "good kid" by adults – obedient and morally-sure, with a healthy appreciation for athletics.

He is a good kid, but he's also painfully naïve. Too quick to anger, and too dense to make it count.

Lelouch is sent sprawling by his punch. She clutches a hand to her cheek as he rants at her angrily in Japanese. It's going to bruise and the swelling will make it hard to hide from Nunnally. Lelouch glowers up at him.

How dare he. She is the last thing standing between his pitiful country and the Britannian Army. How dare he.

So Lelouch doesn't cry. She sees no point in letting this brat see her tears. Instead, she pulls herself up, back and shoulders already falling into the familiar rigidity of good posture.

" _As expected,_ " she says, letting the Japanese drop off her tongue as if she were a native. She is _done_ caring about what these people think of her, caring about petty advantages or distant plans for revenge. " _A nation of savages._ "

Suzaku stiffens, either at Lelouch's proficiency with the language or at the insult.

"You…" Sonoe says in English, "speak Japanese?"

Lelouch twists her lips. It doesn't matter if it's a smirk or a sneer that comes out – both will have the desired effect. "Know thy enemy."

Then she turns away, yet another dismissal, because this miserable woman and her miserable son cannot take away her pride, not yet, and leaves the room.

This is Suzaku, though, and Suzaku – who she calls that, no honorific, never an honorific – is so much more than the boy who punched a princess because of what she represented.

It takes a little longer for her to be able to see it, though.

.

Nunnally is _lost._

She's lost and she's gone and Lelouch doesn't know how it happened. _How does a girl in a wheelchair run off?_ she wonders frantically, but that question is secondary to the fact that Lelouch's little sister is _missing_ and—

"Lelouch!"

Suzaku. Kururugi Suzaku. What is _he_ doing here?

She spins on her foot, a snarl already at her lips, because she does not have _time_ for this, but she stops dead when she sees what Suzaku is carrying.

Nunnally's wheelchair.

And then, she is so very insufferably angry. " _You_ ," she spits, the word Japanese and rough, " _you took her!"_

His eyes widen. " _No!"_ he cries. " _No, I would never—I just want to help you find her, I swear!_ "

" _I don't need your help!"_ she screams. " _Why do you even care? You hate Britannians, right? I don't need you and I definitely don't need your help—"_

Slap.

Lelouch blinks. She brings a trembling hand up to her cheek, wet with tears of desperation and raw from the impact. Her mouth drops open as she looks to Suzaku, who's just _standing_ there, fists clenched.

" _You don't get to decide who I help,"_ he says. " _If I want to find Nunnally, then I'll do it, no matter what you think or say or do._ " He sprints past her then, only looking back to call out, " _If you think you can do everything on your own, you're even more stuck up than I gave you credit for!_ "

And the worst thing: he's right.

He finds Nunnally. He keeps her safe. He keeps her calm.

Lelouch stumbles upon them an hour later, and her relief at seeing Nunnally alive and unharmed overwhelms any feelings of resentment she might have held because Suzaku found her first. But then she stops and she hears—

"I wish you and Lelouch wouldn't fight so much."

That… That's English.

"Sorry, Nunnally."

…And so is that.

Suzaku can speak English. _Suzaku_ can speak _English._

(Of course he speaks English, you _stupid_ girl, English is the language of the business world, it isn't like Japanese, it isn't obscure, how could you not remember this—)

Oh God, what if he _heard_ her?

(Because she'd sat in the moonlight, and she'd told the sky _everything_ , because English was the language of her confessionals to the stars at night, because in truth she really has no idea what she is doing—)

"She's just trying to take care of me," Nunnally is saying. "She's been the only one I can count on ever since…"

"Ever since what?"

(Don't do it, don't tell him, _he doesn't need to know_ —)

"Our mother was killed," says Nunnally, almost too quiet for Lelouch to hear. "I was there. It's why I'm… Lelouch doesn't tell me much, but we fell out of favour in court. She was the only person at our mother's funeral and then our father…"

Nunnally is only six. These are not her burdens to bear. Lelouch steps forward, coming into full-view of Suzaku and Nunnally. She keeps her chin raised, proud to the very last.

"Do you understand now?" she spits, keeping to English. "Do you understand that we are worth _nothing_ —"

But then, there are a pair of arms wrapped around her. _How long? How long has it been since you were last held like this?_

"I'm sorry," Suzaku mumbles into her neck. "I'm so sorry I punched you and I said all those things. I thought you were—I'm sorry."

She tries to push him away. "I don't need your pity," she starts to say.

"It's not pity," Suzaku insists. God, his English is _impeccable._ How could she have missed this? "It's respect."

Then he yanks her forward, into the hidey-hole where Nunnally is sat, and into his friendship.

And he never lets her go.

This, Lelouch understands, is Suzaku: a brat, yes; hot-headed, certainly; self-righteous, no doubt. But he is compassionate and he is kind.

He earns her respect, through stumbling Japanese lessons for Nunnally, through gentle instructions on the finer points of chopstick-usage, through children's games and warm summer days.

He kisses her once, a childish experiment. It's a play-wedding that Lelouch can't bring herself to ruin by telling him it cuts a little too close to home. It would be so easy to crush his naïve idolisation of his father, just eight easy words: "Your father is making me marry Kirihara Taizō."

She never says them.

Sometimes, when she thinks about what she does to get out of the arrangement, she wishes she did. _What is the price you are willing to pay for your freedom, Lelouch?_ The answer is the only Japanese victory in the war.

This is Suzaku. He teaches her to love this country, to grow out of her resentment for her circumstance, to live for something beyond revenge. He doesn't even know he's doing it; it's instinctual for him.

She falls in love with him by increments, a little piece in every board game, in every childish plot, in every time he stands between her and his mother.

This is Suzaku. How could she not?

.

 **Seven Years Later  
a.t.b. 2017 | Tokyo Settlement**

.

Lelouch straightens her school jacket one last time as she walks, Rivalz bouncing along beside her. He's been like this for as long as she's known him, always experiencing emotions in their extremes. She's never been able to figure out how much of it is just for show.

"How much do we stand to gain from this one?" Lelouch asks.

"You mean apart from a favour from our esteemed principal?" Rivalz replies. "Half a million at least, maybe more depending on what sort of negotiations happened in the game."

Lelouch snorts. Nobles. Truly the only people on the planet who could turn chess into an exercise in high-stakes gambling. Still, she can't complain. It's what keeps her and Nunnally in the green, despite their relatively high cost of living.

She sighs. "Let's get this farce over with."

A pair of servants push the doors in front of them open, and the light from the corridor spills into the gloom of the room. The colour scheme is decidedly drab – _burgundy,_ Lelouch thinks, _how very nouveau riche_ – and the only sources of light are a dim lamp and a muted television.

Ruben Ashford is on his feet almost the second Lelouch steps forward. He's a mess if she's ever seen one, hands trembling and grey hair slicked to his scalp with sweat. "Oh, thank heavens, you're here," he rushes out, scrambling away from the board.

Lelouch smiles dispassionately at him.

This is the man who changed warfare with one machine. He championed a Knight of the Rounds and future Empress and, for nearly a decade, he sat at the top of Britannia's social sphere. A ruthless businessman and a brilliant engineer.

And look at him now.

"Eh, Lelouch, this one looks pretty impossible," Rivalz comments from by the board.

"This is your substitute?" the nobleman asks, laughing as he does so. "A schoolgirl?"

Lelouch says nothing, but puts a hand on Ruben's shoulder. "Head back to the academy, Old Man," she says. "I'll handle this." He nods and scurries away, allowing her to turn to take in the board. "Rivalz, how soon do we have to leave in order to make it to fourth period?"

Rivalz rocks on his feet, tapping his chin. "Twenty minutes if I speed, I guess."

She smirks. "Well, then," she says as she takes Ruben's place. "I suppose you'll get to drive safe."

.

This is Area 11. It's unrecognisable as the stubbornly proud country Lelouch learned to love all those years ago, a Britannian society even more rotten than the one in the homeland. It's a home, of sorts.

"Eight minutes fifty-six – that has to be a new record!" Rivalz crows as they leave the building. "You haven't finished a game that fast since the first time we met."

She shrugs. "He was arrogant. Not a good characteristic when you don't have anything to back it up."

"Oh, like you, Miss Lamperouge?" he teases.

Lelouch cracks a smile. "Exactly like me," she says. "Beyond a certain point, though, chess becomes less like a strategy game and more like a maths equation. There are only so many viable moves you can make."

"Ugh, don't talk to me about maths," Rivalz shoots back. "There's a reason I always schedule these things for Wednesday third period." He laughs. "Ah, I love it when you play nobility. They're always too proud not to pay up."

Sometimes, Lelouch wonders what Rivalz is doing with the earnings from their gambling. She knows that he's on bad terms with his father, having chosen to enrol at Ashford under his mother's name, but they make more than enough to pay any living expenses he might incur five times over. Whatever. It's none of her business.

"Honestly, I'm less of a fan," she replies absentmindedly. "They're tepid."

Rivalz spins around so that he's facing her as they walk. "Well then why don't you play an Eleven? They're nothing like us Britannians, after all."

 _It's not "Japanese chess", Lelouch. It's_ _ **shogi**_ _, and I don't know how to play it._

She lets out a hollow laugh. "Better not."

They reach the bay where Rivalz parked his bike. She pulls on his spare helmet as he sorts out the ticket. There's some kind of royal announcement happening on the television screen above the street, Clovis throwing out his hands and clutching at his heart.

He always was one for theatrics.

"Aren't you going to participate?"

Lelouch startles, looking over to Rivalz. "With the moment of silence thing? Not really my kind of thing. What about you?"

"Eh, it's embarrassing," he says, scratching at the back of his neck. "It just feels pretty fake, you know?"

She looks back up at the screen. Clovis has his hand on his heart, head bowed and expression solemn. She remembers another broadcast, from seven years ago, where he'd been wearing that same grave-faced look. He'd even said almost the exact same words as today – _a moment of silence for all those lost in the occupation, including my dearest sisters…_

Lelouch exhales. "Yeah, I know," she says. "C'mon, let's get back to Ashford."

.

There's bad luck, the little quirks of fate that end with you face-down in the dirt through no particular fault of your own. Rain on the day of your planned picnic, perhaps, or biting into an apple to find it rotten on the inside. The end result is often nothing more than disappointment – at its worst, embarrassment.

And then there's Bad Luck.

Lelouch, in a mess of limbs on the floor of a truck being shot at by the Britannian military, can't help but think that this qualifies as the latter. If she were superstitious, she'd probably think that this was the universe's way of getting back at her for all the less-than-legal gambling.

Oh God, if she gets out of this alive, Shirley can _never_ find out about this. She wouldn't shut up for a month.

 _That's the last time I listen to my dormant hero complex,_ Lelouch decides. From the darkness and the road surface, they're probably driving along the old subway lines, which means that they're headed for an exit somewhere in the ghetto.

She tightens her grip around her cell-phone. There's no reception down there – too far underground – so she can't call for help. Walking around the ghettos dressed as she is would just be asking for something to happen, which leaves the military as her best option.

 _How airtight is my identity?_ It's a question she's asked herself many times over the last seven years, but for the first time the answer is too close to "not airtight enough".

She'll have to take that risk, though. Ashford Academy has good standing within Area 11; her uniform and her features should be enough to hold the military's fire long enough for her to trade with them. A terrorist communicator should be enough to get her home, right?

Lelouch takes a deep breath. This is too close. Far too close.

Suddenly, Lelouch is thrown forward as the truck collides with something. Her ribs ache as she pushes herself up, but not with the sharpness that would denote a break. That hit was either an accident or a strike from the military and either option means that she has to move. Communicator clutched in hand, she stands, and then she hesitates.

There's a gun on the floor of the truck.

Lelouch knows how to use a gun. It may have been over seven years since she picked one up, but it's something she learned from her mother and, as such, something she has not let herself forget.

These are the ghettos. The worst place to live in Area 11. And she is just a girl.

Lelouch picks up the gun.

And then promptly drops it when a foot collides with her face.

She's dazed for a moment, and for that moment she sees—

 _"_ _Like it, Lelouch? Tōdō-sensei taught it to me! It's a flying spin kick."_

 _"_ _You look like a ballerina."_

 _"_ _Yeah, well, so do you!"_

 _"…_ _Fair enough."_

—but it's not Suzaku. It can't be.

"That's enough mindless murder!" the soldier above her shouts. He's holding her down by the neck, tight enough that she can barely breathe let alone choke out an explanation. "Planning to use poison gas?" He shoves her down harder. "Don't play dumb with me!"

"Don't lecture me on morality!" Lelouch spits, twisting to drive her knee straight up into his groin. The soldier jumps back before she can make contact, landing in a combat stance across the way from her.

"Look at me, do I honestly look like a terrorist to you?" she demands. "You Britannian military types are all the same: shoot first, ask questions never—"

"Lelouch!"

She stops dead. (No, no, no, he can't know her name, she can't have been found out, not now, not ever—)

"It's me," the solider says, removing his helmet, "Suzaku."

Kururugi Suzaku – who she thinks she'll always think of like that, surname first, because Suzaku had always _insisted_ on it, even when speaking English – is standing in front of her, a gentle smile on his lips, and she wants to rebel at the very sight. Britannia has taken _everything_ from her, and now they've somehow taken Suzaku as well.

"You…" Her mouth is dry. "You became a Britannian soldier?" She blanks her face, but she knows it won't be enough to conceal her disdain from Suzaku.

He doesn't meet her eye. "It's complicated, Lelouch," he says. "Look," he exhales, "this is a military operation. I'm not even going to ask what you're doing in Shinjuku, but you need to leave."

"And you want me to do what, exactly?" she shoots back. "Stroll through the ghetto with the words 'rich Britannian' practically stamped on my forehead?"

Suzaku makes a strangled sound. "If you stay—"

A low hissing sound interrupts their conversation.

Lelouch turns her head just in time to catch a glimpse of the container beside her opening before Suzaku tackles her to the floor, forcing his own gas mask onto her face. It makes her both incomprehensibly furious and impossibly fond, because this is Suzaku. _You stupid, self-sacrificial_ _ **idiot**_ _._

But…

The hand holding the gas mask to her face loosens. Suzaku shifts off her, eyes caught on the container. "That isn't poison gas."

No, it's not. A girl with waist-length green hair tumbles out of the capsule, arms and legs bound and body weak. Lelouch watches the green-haired girl's body crumple on the concrete, before looking back to Suzaku, dread slowly pooling in her stomach.

"I don't understand," Suzaku says blankly. "The briefing said… There wasn't anything about a prisoner."

"That's because she's not a prisoner," Lelouch responds sharply. "She's an experiment."

Suzaku's eyes widen. "But she's…"

"A person?" Lelouch snorts. "I don't imagine that factored much into your superior's decision making process." _Do you see now, Suzaku? This is Britannia, corrupt to the very last, and we've just stumbled into one of their dirty little secrets. Do you understand what this means?_ "Come on, we need to move before we're found."

But Suzaku just shakes his head. "Lelouch," he says, pale-faced and faint, "we have visual recognition software in our goggles."

She freezes. Of course they do. It makes perfect sense. The military doesn't trust Numbers in the slightest, even if they're prepared to use them as cannon-fodder. _Suzaku, you idiot,_ Lelouch wants to scream. _Your insistence on acting like Britannia's spaniel is going to kill us both._

Instead, she takes a deep breath. "How much time to we have?" she asks, already running through potential plans of action depending on his answer. Do they run, or do they hide, or do they fight? It's chess on a grander scale, with so much more than money on the line.

He shakes his head, expression soft and apologetic. "Not enough."

It's an apt judgement as it turns out. Lelouch opens her mouth to reply, but is cut off by the sound of heavy footfalls. Ten soldiers, all dressed in the distinctive uniforms of the Royal Guard, round the corner, weapons drawn and aimed straight for them

 _Yeah, we're dead._

"404, what the hell is this?" the leader of the group demands. Suzaku opens his mouth to say something, but the leader cuts him off. "You damn Eleven monkey! Not even a true Britannian is allowed to touch that!"

(That. You, girl. The other one. You two. Damn Brit. _THEY HAVE NAMES!_ )

"Sir!" Suzaku jumps to his feet, scrambling for the right words to get them out of this alive. He won't find them.

 _I'm going to die here, aren't I?_

Alone on the ground with the girl, Lelouch's eyes fall to the gun. It was knocked away a little bit by Suzaku's kick, but it's still within arm's reach. She could have it in her hand in seconds.

"…Going to be lenient. Private Kururugi, take this and execute the terrorist."

Lelouch's head snaps up. Suzaku is frozen, staring at the gun in his superior officer's hand.

She takes a steadying breath. So that's how they want this to play out, then.

It'll go like this: Suzaku will shoot her. She'll die by his hand, and it will be only marginally better than being brought down by the hands of a full-blooded Britannian. Afterwards, they'll probably use her death as the weapon they need to finally screw him over. "Suzaku Kururugi shoots unarmed Britannian schoolgirl" will be the headline that they'll use to hold him up as concrete proof that the Japanese can't be trusted.

The Son of Japan, traitor to his own country and traitor to the one he signed his soul over to.

He'll be executed. Dead.

It could go the other way, she supposes, not that it would change anything. If Suzaku refuses to shoot her, they'll kill him on the spot for insubordination. She'll be dead seconds later, yet another corpse among the rubble of the ghetto.

She could save him. It would be effortless, as simple as "you would shoot a Princess of Britannia?" but it's out of the question. She'd sooner die than do anything that could result in Nunnally being shipped back to the capital. She just—she never thought it would come to a choice between her sister and her best friend.

 _I'm so sorry, Suzaku,_ Lelouch thinks. _But Nunnally always wins._

Lelouch isn't courageous. She's pragmatic, though, so when her eyes fall to the dropped gun once more, she thinks, _I'm dead either way._

Nunnally will understand.

 _Please understand, Nunnally._

There are some things, after all, which it is just not worth it to live through.

A moment's hesitation is all she needs from Suzaku. He gives her that and more. Lelouch throws herself forward, over the green-haired girl, and clasps her hand around the gun. It's a desperate, futile last hope, and she knows before she even makes the dive that she's going to be dead before she's even fired one bullet.

But that's not the goal. _Look at you now, Lelouch. Once a princess and now a glorified distraction for Kururugi Suzaku._

She launches herself to her feet. She doesn't even make it halfway before she feels a bullet hit.

Getting shot hurts about as much as she expected it to. It's overwhelmingly painful, the type of thing that takes up the entirety of her attention, like something screaming in her mind. As she falls down, though, she catches Suzaku's eye.

A kind smile. _It'll be okay. Run._

He looks back, stricken, and the expression on his face makes her want to laugh.

He always was so very expressive.

She wonders who fired the bullet that hit. Who betrayed the Empire without even realising it. Who her executer was.

And then she hits the ground and everything happens at once. Suzaku's screaming something at his superiors – she hopes it's not the truth of her identity, because she'll come back from the grave to _murder_ him if it is – and then there's a loud, ear-rendering bang, too close, and there are hands on her, pulling her up – strong hands, Suzaku's hands, and she is glad that it is him – and then there's too much movement.

Someone is crying above her.

"Su… zaku…" she says, syllables disjointed. "I…"

She falls into darkness.

.

Miles away, a woman in a burnt orange uniform perks up from her station. "Lloyd!" she screams. "Lloyd, we've got contact!"

.

* * *

Couple of points, just for interest:

1\. "The answer is the only Japanese victory in the war." - In the audio dramas, we see a little more of what went down in Japan before the war. At one point, Genbu, the sleaze, tries to marry himself off to Nunnally, which, given that she's six and he's like 40, is exceedingly gross. It's heavily implied that Lelouch sells him Britannian military information to get her out of the arrangement, which is sort of the idea that I was building on here.

2\. "You haven't finished a game that fast since the first time we met." - Fun fact: Rivalz met Lelouch when he got in over his head playing a chess game. The meeting in canon can probably be best described as 'Rivalz panics and Lelouch is a cocky little shit'.

3\. "...acting like Britannia's spaniel" - Lelouch is referencing a monologue from _A Midsummer Night's Dream._ Long story short, Helena is all "I'm your spaniel, the more you spurn me, the more I adore you" and I was suitably horrified that I had to _read_ that shit without a caveat that that was a seriously fucked up basis for a relationship.

 **Next chapter:** Lelouch wakes up, Suzaku waits to die, and Nunnally makes a decision. Oh, and gratuitous Lloyd. Who doesn't love a bit of Lloyd?


	2. Black and Blue

**Chapter Two  
Black and Blue**

 _1\. Lloyd Asplund and Rakshata Chawla_

 _Do you recognise the two faces opposite? Probably not. Rest assured, however, that this multi-national duo of former child geniuses contains what are arguably the two greatest scientists the Imperial Colchester Institute has ever produced._

 _Meeting and matching wits during their studies at ICI, Asplund and Chawla first debuted onto the international science scene with their joint final project, titled at the time "High Speed Energy Processing and Distribution Core". The prototype that they produced provided the basis for Asplund and Chawla's later development of the Yggdrasil Drive, the power-distribution technology that is used in every Fourth Generation Knightmare Frame._

 _Asplund and Chawla are now rumoured to have split: Asplund for a career in military R &D and Chawla to focus on prosthetics. Only time will tell what a further team-up of these two will bring to the table in the future._

From the article "10 Greatest Scientific Teams of Today" by Sherry Williams, first published Nov. 4. 2010.

.

The Second Pacific War lasted exactly one month. 31 days of bloodshed. Lelouch remembers each and every one of them with a precise, calculated exactitude. She knows better than any Britannian history textbook what happened during the last week of the war, knows how it ravaged the land and scattered Japan's people.

And still, seven years later, much like the stupidly stubborn Japanese, she dreams of it.

"—zaku! Suzaku!"

Nunnally is on her back, fragile and worried. She's shouting out at the top of her lungs, so loud that each word makes Lelouch wince. Nunnally's mouth is right there behind her ear, too close, but Lelouch says nothing.

"Suzaku!" Nunnally calls again.

Lelouch spots something. Her eyes narrow and she taps Nunnally once to get her to stop shouting.

"What is it, Lelouch?" Nunnally asks.

Lelouch shrugs, because she hasn't yet trained herself out of nonverbal gestures when talking to Nunnally, and murmurs, "I think I see him."

"What's he doing?"

"He's…" Lelouch pauses. "He's crying." She shifts Nunnally off her back. "He's up on the bank. I can't climb with you on my back. I'm going to go see what's wrong."

Nunnally nods her agreement and Lelouch ruffles her little sister's hair before she trudges up to the sharp wall of dirt that stands between her and Suzaku. It's a struggle to heave herself up it, but she manages. She's privately glad that she stopped wearing the stupid dresses when the war began and switched back to her normal, somewhat boyish clothes. She can just imagine the frills getting caught on something.

"Hey, Suzaku," she says, approaching the boy slowly. He doesn't seem to notice her. "Hey, are you—"

He flinches, a full-body action, the moment her hand touches his shoulder. His head whips around, eyes wide and panicked, before he takes in her appearance.

"Lelouch?" he rasps.

"No, simply an uncanny lookalike," she replies, sitting down on the ground beside him. "You were late to our meeting place. Nunnally got worried."

Suzaku's head snaps up again and he whirls around. "Where is she? You didn't leave her alone, did you? You know what they'll—"

"Relax," Lelouch interrupts. "She's down there." She points down the edge of the bank. "She hasn't left my line of sight once. Give me some credit." She gives him a strange look. "And why are we speaking English? I thought this was Japan and 'in Japan, we speak _Japanese_ '."

Suzaku goes stiff. "We're not going to win this war."

Lelouch watches him closely. He's not precisely wrong, but he's not precisely right either. The problem is that Suzaku is drastically underestimating just how strategically important Japan is on an international scale. If they hold the Britannians off for, say, just a month more, it's more than likely that the EU, or the Chinese Federation will step in, just to ensure that Britannia doesn't get to control it.

But Suzaku probably isn't looking for that sort of answer. She keeps silent.

He inhales deeply, as if he's building himself up to something. "My father is dead."

Lelouch freezes. "Assassination?" The word is dry and filled with fear. If Britannia has found them, found Kururugi Shrine, then she and Nunnally are as good as dead—

"No," Suzaku says, cutting through her internal panic. "He—" He breaks off, and for a second he looks so haunted, so tormented, that she's taken completely aback.

Oh. It hits her. Suicide.

She isn't sure what to make of this, if she's honest. She always knew Kururugi Genbu was a fool, but she never thought he was a coward too.

And then she hears it. The quiet, almost undetectable whirring of a Britannian fighter jet. She throws her head up to the sky, scanning desperately, until she spots the source of the noise. "Suzaku," she says, urgently, nudging him. "Suzaku, we need to go, _now_."

He blinks at her, coming back to himself, and then follows her finger to the sky, to the jet. "No," he whispers hoarsely. "No, what are they—"

The jet swoops low, and then…

A raging inferno marks the landscape where, just moments ago, the main building of Kururugi Shrine was. Suzaku crumples to his knees and lets out a choking scream.

And then… everything just… fades… away…

 _No, no, no, no, no,_ _ **no**_ _, Lelouch, please, no, you can't die, please, Lelouch,_ _ **no**_ _._

She opens her eyes.

It's actually a bit of surprise to be even _opening_ her eyes, given that she's pretty certain that's a sign that she isn't dead. Of course, bullet wounds aren't always fatal, but being shot in the middle of the ghetto with no chance for prompt medical attention does reduce the odds of survival somewhat.

She looks down her torso. Sure enough, peeking out from underneath her hospital gown are white bandages, wrapped tight around her shoulder. _So that's where the bullet hit._

Lelouch looks around her room. She's in a hospital, that much is clear, and it's a relatively high-class one from what she can tell. That places her somewhere in the Settlement. Someone has stripped her out of her uniform, which means that they most likely found her school ID.

That's a good thing, she reminds herself. Ruben is listed as her emergency contact and, if Nunnally is in even the smallest bit of danger, he knows to get her out.

Lelouch's lips twist in annoyance. She needs more information before she can make a feasible plan. All she can do right now is trust that the contingencies she put in place all those years ago are working as they should.

The door to her room opens.

"Aha!" The man who steps through the opening grins widely. "See, Cécile, I told you she'd be awake by now." He moves to the side, revealing a woman in a burnt orange military uniform, who shoots the man a scowling look of displeasure before smiling, somewhat more gently, at Lelouch.

 _Oh God. The military._ Lelouch feels sick. "Where am I?" she forces out. It's as much a test as it is an honest question – a way to probe, to get a better idea of her circumstance.

It's the woman – Cécile? – that answers. "Princess Nunnally Hospital, back in the Settlement," she says, one hand coming up to tuck a strand of indigo hair behind her ear. "Lloyd and I were part of the team that retrieved you from the ghetto."

Lelouch is momentarily caught up in an intense feeling of distaste. Princess Nunnally Hospital: Clovis's choice of name, no doubt, yet another example of his ever-present cosmetic grief. There's probably some sort of Princess Lelouch building out there, but she doubts it's another hospital. Too repetitive for Clovis.

She mentally shakes herself out of that train of thought.

"I suppose congratulations are in order," the man – Lloyd? – drawls, wandering over to the end of her bed and picking up her medical chart. He flicks through it disinterestedly before replacing it. "You are currently one of only three listed civilian survivors from the Shinjuku Purge."

"Lloyd!" Cécile cuffs him around the ear. "That's classified information!"

"Ah, apologies. It was an – what's the euphemism? – urban renewal."

"Lloyd!"

Lelouch feels her mind freeze up. She shouldn't be surprised. This is Britannia and this is Clovis and this is what they do, but, all the same, _this is Clovis._ He was the one that taught her how to play chess and she remembers his face when she won that first game, the open-mouthed shock. He taught her how to dress like a lady and though she hated him for it at the time, for the way he insisted on constricting dresses in violet with frills and ruff, she recognises it for the necessary help it was now.

This is Clovis.

 _He purged a ghetto._

She notices too late that things have gone very quiet in her room. Lloyd and Cécile are both staring at her, Cécile with sympathy and Lloyd with… something else.

 _Take control of the conversation, Lelouch,_ she chides herself. "Who are you?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at them. "You're not doctors."

"I can't imagine what could have possibly given us away," Lloyd deadpans, and the smile is back. "Lloyd Asplund at your service and this, here, is Lieutenant Cécile Croomy."

 _Lloyd… Asplund?_ Panic bubbles up beneath Lelouch's skin. If these two were simple nobodies, a military consultant and his minder, perhaps, then there would be a chance that this visit was nothing special. Check up on her, see what she knew about the… _purge_ , and coerce her into signing confidentiality agreements until her fingers bleed.

But Lloyd Asplund? There's no reason for a Britannian noble of Asplund's standing to be here, no reason he could possibly be interested in Lelouch Lamperouge, brilliant but lazy student of Ashford Academy.

 _They know._ The thought cuts through her panic and with it comes pure, unadulterated terror. _They know who I am, who I_ _ **was**_ _, and they want something from me._

 _What do they want?_

They're staring at her again, but it's expectant this time. They're waiting for her to say something.

 _Well, in that case._

"I'm sorry," Lelouch rushes out, putting on her best flustered look. "I just—you developed the Yggdrasil Drive."

"Oho? A fan?" Lloyd's face splits into a wide grin. "That does make this next part easier. You see, I find myself in the unusual position of needing you to do me a favour."

She blanks her face. "A favour?"

 _He knows. He definitely knows._

"Yes," Lloyd affirms. "I believe we have a mutual acquaintance – a Private Suzaku Kururugi?" She flinches and, if possible, his grin stretches even wider. "I need you to help me save his life."

They have Suzaku. Suzaku is going to die. She got herself _shot_ for that bull-headed, ungrateful idiot, and he's still going to die.

Cécile steps up so that she's level to Lloyd. "Suzaku is set to stand trial for insubordination in three days," she says, the words calm and measured. "During operations in Shinjuku, he disobeyed several direct orders from his CO in order to save your life."

Three days? Why wait three days?

Oh. The purge. Britannians use Numbers like cannon-fodder – how many were spread out through the ghetto when the kill-on-sight order went through? Hundreds, probably, all witnessing their fellow countrymen gunned down like animals. There was probably a wealth of offences just like Suzaku's during that time.

Except… Oh, now she knows where this is going.

"You want me to testify at his court martial," she says.

"Oh, very well done!" Lloyd says, clapping. "You're very fast on the uptake – my compliments. But right now, I think the most prominent question in your mind is 'what do they want with Suzaku?' The answer to that is simple. Private Kururugi is a very important part—" he breaks off, casting a furtive glance to Cécile, "—of my team."

 _No, no, no, please, not her, not her, please, no._

"And my testimony will save him because?" Lelouch prompts.

Cécile blushes. "Ah, we were hoping," she stammers, "that is, we were wondering—"

"You aren't going to make me say it, are you?" Lloyd cuts across her.

Lelouch's returning stare is hard. "Yes."

Cécile stops speaking. She looks between Lloyd and Lelouch, eyes narrowed. "Am I missing something?"

Lloyd sighs, the movement exaggerated, but not entirely fake. "If I'm wrong I am going to look like such a fool," he laments. "Cécile may very well never let me live it down."

Lelouch's stare doesn't relent.

"Very well, Your Highness," Lloyd says. "Disobeying orders to save a Britannian schoolgirl is understandable, but still insubordination. Disobeying orders to save a Princess of Britannia, however, is grounds for promotion."

 _Your Highness._

How many times had she heard that before Japan? Thousands, doubtlessly. It was part of her identity back then.

Even in Japan, she couldn't escape the title, but it had taken on a different meaning there. Suzaku used to call her it whenever he thought she was being particularly entitled. He said it thick with irony and disdain and yet it felt like it was worth _more_ somehow in spite of that.

Now it just feels like a death sentence in two words.

She'd always known this day was coming. She and Nunnally couldn't hide forever, but Lelouch had just thought—

She'd thought what? That it'd be later? That it'd happen as she led the charge to tear apart Britannia, to heroically unearth the truth of her mother's murder, finally bring Marianne vi Britannia's killer to justice?

In the end, there is no dignity in survival. There is no space for heroism in this endlessly damned world.

Cécile stares between Lelouch and Lloyd in growing horror. It looks like she's waiting for one of them to jump up and shout, "Psych!" She turns slowly on the spot, her gaze settling on Lelouch, and it's almost too easy to see how her thoughts are developing as she takes in Lelouch's appearance.

It's probably the violet eyes, in the end, that convince her. "Your Highness?" she echoes.

Lelouch regulates her breathing, her fingers scrunching into her palms beneath the blanket on her bed. "From Lieutenant Croomy's surprise, I'm guessing that this isn't information that is commonly known."

Lloyd smiles again, but by this point, Lelouch is wondering if his face does anything else. "Not precisely, no. Why? Planning my unfortunate end?"

"No," Lelouch answers, and it's the truth. There wouldn't be much point and the death of a figure as high profile as Asplund wouldn't bring any kind of good scrutiny. "Not yet, at least," she adds. "I…" she pauses, considering.

On the one hand, Lloyd is a wild card. He's near impossible for her to get a read on, a far cry from any number of nobles she's met in her time in Area 11. On the other, he's in here, talking to her, instead of running straight to Clovis, which means…

"You're not part of the main body of the military, are you?" Lelouch asks. "You're well-known in the field of Knightmare development, so at a guess you run some sort of R&D division. Who's your sponsor?"

Cornelia would normally be Lelouch's first guess, but the Witch of Britannia isn't a particularly good fit for the role. The Britannian press have her placed as the head of some campaign in the Middle Eastern Federation. No, if Lloyd were one of hers, he would be over there with her, not stuck in some battle-scarred area so desperate for personnel he's turned to hiring Honorary Britannians.

Clovis is also out; Lloyd wouldn't risk pissing him off by withholding her survival from him.

It has to be someone above Clovis in the Imperial pecking order and, given that he's the Third Prince, there aren't many of them. Odysseus lacks the drive and Guinevere the foresight, so—

"Schneizel," Lelouch breathes, answering her own question. She's not sure if this is better or worse than the other prospects. "Your sponsor is Schneizel."

It's another set of good news and bad news.

Good news: she's just bought herself a decent amount of time. There's some kind of summit going on over in the EU right now – Shirley was nattering about it a couple of days ago – which means he's going to be unreachable for at least another five days.

Bad news: it's _Schneizel._

If Clovis taught Lelouch how to play chess and how to dress for court, Schneizel taught her how to win at chess and how to survive court. Britannia's Second Prince is… slippery. Not to be underestimated.

She never was able to beat him at chess.

But if it's a choice between Schneizel and Clovis, she knows which is the better ally to have.

"Suzaku wasn't protecting me from terrorists when he disobeyed orders," she says, "so you can understand why I'm not eager for the truth of my identity to get out. Getting shot by the Royal Guard once is enough for me."

Cécile frowns. "Why would the Royal Guard be—" she breaks off. "Oh." Her eyes go wide. " _Oh_."

(Schneizel's face from a decade ago smiles down at her. "Give them the truth," he instructs, "and let them create their own lies. Show them just enough of what they expect that they fill in the rest for you.")

"Suzaku is," she takes a deep breath, searching for the right words, "a very good friend of mine. I will testify at his trial, but there are things I need," _need, not want,_ "if I'm going to survive the ordeal."

Lloyd is looking at her, lips set into a grim line, but he looks willing. Cécile's face is somewhat more expressive, creased with concern that edges too close to motherly for Lelouch to be entirely comfortable with it.

 _Got you,_ she thinks and sends a small prayer upwards that Nunnally will forgive her for what she's about to do.

.

Lelouch and Nunnally are cut from the same cloth, but ultimately they are vastly different.

Lelouch is hopelessly cynical – tolerant and compassionate, but rarely openly friendly. She's been anchorless for years now, slowly drifting away, and though Nunnally's older sister is an excellent actress, Nunnally is the one person on earth her sister is not be able to fool.

Just yesterday morning, as Lelouch kissed Nunnally's forehead before heading out the door, Nunnally wondered how long she had left before she lost Lelouch forever.

She didn't mean it like this.

"I'm so sorry, Nunnally," Principal Ashford says, voice muted in a way that suggests he's holding his head in his hands. "This is all my fault."

If only it were that simple, Nunnally thinks. Lelouch is reckless in all the worst ways, not brave per se, but dangerously unconcerned about her safety beyond the sadness that her death would bring Nunnally. No matter what Principal Ashford wants to think, there is no way that Lelouch is blameless in this.

"We're trying to get more information, but we're hitting a wall of 'classified', I'm afraid," Milly adds. Her voice comes from somewhere above and to the left of where Principal Ashford's did, so she's probably standing above her grandfather. "All we've got out of them is that Lelouch has been shot and is recovering in the military's care."

Nunnally remembers the Britannian military, or rather the carnage they brought with them. _We're just passing by a dump, Nunnally,_ she hears, a distant echo in her mind. _Don't worry about the smell. It'll be gone soon._

"Do they—" she breaks off, taking a deep breath. "Do they know?"

Again, it's Milly who answers. "Most likely not," she replies. "Say what you want about Prince Clovis, but no-one can deny the man loves a media show. The military's recovery of Lelouch would be all over the airwaves by now if they knew."

"But what if they're keeping it quiet so that they can—" Nunnally stops herself before she can complete the question.

"I don't think that's the case either, Nunna," Milly reassures her calmly. "They wouldn't have notified Grandpa. Lelouch would have just… disappeared."

Nunnally feels her fingers curl around the armrests on her wheelchair. In Japan, at Ashford, she's been happy. It wasn't going to last forever – she always knew that – but she was _happy_ and Lelouch was… Lelouch was there.

"She'll tell them I'm dead," Nunnally whispers, dropping her head so that she would be looking at her lap if her eyes were open. "She'll lie and say I died in the invasion so that I don't have to go back to Pendragon, and then…"

 _I'll be left alone._

She imagines that Milly is looking at her with sympathy. She never saw Milly before she lost her sight – unlike Principal Ashford, who drank tea with her mother at Aries Villa whenever he was in the capital – so she doesn't have anything to base her current appearance off. She likes to think of Milly as a blonde incarnation of Euphemia, but with an added streak of mischief to her.

Nunnally swallows. "What are we going to do?"

She hears Principal Ashford take in a ragged, steadying breath. "I'm so sorry, Nunnally," he says, again.

 _Oh,_ she thinks. _Nothing._

"Right now, our best bet is to wait it out for a bit," Milly speaks up. "We run the danger of blowing Lelouch's cover if we're too rash. About all we can do is get ready to act the moment we get more information."

"If it comes down to it," Nunnally says, voice stronger than she feels, "and Lelouch has to go back to Pendragon, I'm going with her."

"Nunnally, I'm not sure if that's—"

"I've lost enough to that country," she says sharply. "They do not get to take Lelouch too."

It's a low blow that's twice as effective because no-one expects it to come from her. What Lelouch forgets, what _everyone_ forgets, is that Nunnally is just as marked by loss and resentment as her older sister. A hail of bullets stole her legs and her mother, her own weakness took away her sight, and her sister is self-destructing just out of her reach.

She has every right to be just as full of anger as Lelouch and the fact that she isn't does not mean the anger is not there.

.

Lelouch tucks a strand of wet hair beneath her ear, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. She's seen better days, in all honesty, but she's also seen far worse. _I can't believe I'm going to do this,_ she thinks, fingers finding a resting place on the mirror's surface.

On the edge of the sink below her is a cheap cell phone. She paid the floor's janitor three hundred pounds for it – all the cash she had on her when she was taken to Shinjuku – and it's the closest thing she currently has to "untraceable".

She exhales, picks up the phone, and plugs in a number she's taught herself by heart.

 _"_ _Mistress?"_

Bless Sayoko a thousand times over.

"It's me," Lelouch affirms. "Is she there?"

Sayoko pauses, probably processing what Lelouch has said. No names and an unidentified number – it shouldn't be too hard for Sayoko to infer that Lelouch is worried about the call being bugged.

 _"_ _Yes,"_ comes Sayoko's answer. _"Do you want me to pass you to her?"_

Lelouch swallows roughly. "No," she says. She loves her sister, but if she hears her voice right now, Lelouch will crumple. "I—I need you to tell her something for me. Can you do that?"

 _"_ _Of course."_

A deep breath in. "Tell her that our first friend in this country is still alive and that the only way I can save him is to tell everyone the truth about me. Tell her that I'm sorry and—tell her goodbye."

 _"_ _I will,"_ Sayoko says softly. There's a pause. _"Mistress, it's been a pleasure."_

Something clogs in Lelouch's throat. "The same to you," she chokes out.

Everything Lelouch knows about being a woman, she learned from either the internet or Sayoko. Even though she's more Nunnally's maid, Sayoko has been there without fail whenever Lelouch has needed her. It's more than Lelouch can say about anyone else.

Lelouch hangs up the call.

There's a knock at the door to the bathroom. Lelouch startles, knocking the phone off the sink and shuffling it under her discarded hospital gown on the floor.

"Uh, Your Highness, are you all right in there?" Cécile calls through the door.

Lelouch looks back to her reflection. It's still there, under the bland apathy that wore at her each day, that spark of regal beauty. She levels her chin and twists her lips into a small, knowing smile.

("Let nothing touch you," a teenage Schneizel says to her as he corrects her posture. "You are beyond their reach, too far above them for their insults and threats to mean anything to you.")

"I'm fine, Lieutenant Croomy," she says.

It's not a lie, not exactly.

These are the facts: Lelouch is terrified, yes, but she is no longer the petulant child she was when she demanded justice from her father. She has had seven years to let her anger cool and she refuses to let it rule her. She is more cunning than Clovis and the games her older brother likes to play are ones that Lelouch understands far better than him.

And she has a trump card.

Lelouch doesn't know who the green-haired girl in the capsule was, but she knows that Clovis was prepared to kill indiscriminately to keep her existence secret. Lelouch can work with that.

 _Even if blackmail is so very lacking in finesse,_ Lelouch sighs to herself as she turns her gaze to the clothes that are hung up on the towel rack.

After her mother was killed, Lelouch refused to wear anything other than black. It was her own passive-aggressive way of using Britannian mourning traditions to let everyone know that she had not forgotten and that she would not forget. She was the Black Princess to Schneizel's White Prince and it used to make her laugh that their monikers were reflective of their preferred sides in chess.

When she was sent to Japan with Nunnally, Lelouch stopped wearing black. It was a calculated decision, though, part of the impenetrable, inhuman mask she wore whenever faced by Sonoe Kururugi.

These clothes are not black. Part of Lelouch wishes they were, to scream, "I will _never_ forget," at the top of her lungs, but there is a better way to send her message.

(Of all the paintings of Marianne vi Britannia, there is only one that reached any level of renown. It captures the first time she attended court after marrying the Emperor: Lelouch's mother standing at the top of a staircase, chin raised in regal defiance as she looks out over the aristocracy and dares them to disapprove of her. Marianne vi Britannia was undeniably beautiful, lean body covered in an extravagant dress of—)

Royal blue.

A quiet whisper: _I have not forgotten, even now._

.

Suzaku never really understood what it meant to hate until he met Lelouch. "A child who hates like an adult," he'd heard one of the maids muttering and it was so accurate it was painful. She committed to the emotion with the full might of her mind (and _what_ a mind); for the longest time, Suzaku was terrified that it would burn up everything else.

Seven years have changed Lelouch.

In Shinjuku, it was hard to believe that the young woman stood in front of him was the same as the anger-fuelled girl he met so long ago. It makes even less sense with distance, because Lelouch—she—she _smiled._

He can't see past that, even now. He's sat in a holding cell, waiting for a five-minute trial and a death sentence, and all he can think of is the fact that Lelouch sacrificed herself for him and smiled as she did it.

 _What about Nunnally?_ Suzaku wanted to scream. _What about your sister? How's she going to feel knowing that you_ _ **died**_ _when you could have lived? How can you be so_ _ **selfish**_ _?_

But really, it wasn't. Selfish, that is. It was probably the most selfless thing Lelouch had ever done.

She did it for him.

And she _smiled._

He thunks his head back against the wall of his cell. _Soon,_ he tells himself. _Soon it will be over._

.

* * *

Points of interest:

1\. "Cécile blushes. 'Ah, we were hoping,' she stammers, 'that is, we were wondering—'" – In the first draft of the chapter, there was an extra scene between Lloyd and Cécile that got cut. Basically, all you have to know here is that Cécile is trying to ask Lelouch if she has ties to any notable noble family, because Suzaku disobeying orders to protect someone of a reasonably high social standing would earn him a _lot_ of leeway. That plan, in her mind at least, probably worked out a little _too_ well.

2\. "Sonoe Kururugi" - After the invasion, Lelouch refers to everyone in the Britannian 'given name then family name' format, even Japanese people she met before the war. The only exception to this is Suzaku, because he essentially hammered his name into her head as Kururugi Suzaku. Part of it is about respect and another part of it is becuase Lelouch is a pretty snide person and she's just incredibly bitter about the way the war took away the peace she managed to find in the months before it.

 **Next chapter:** Lelouch makes her move, Suzaku reacts, and there's a family reunion that has been seven years in the making.


End file.
